For years, one of the clearest signs of successful SEO has been a strong Google ranking. If an important service page appeared near the top of the search results and continued attracting relevant visitors, it was reasonable to conclude that the business was visible when potential customers went looking. AI has made this picture more complicated by changing how people search.
Someone researching a supplier may now ask ChatGPT for recommendations, use Gemini to compare companies, or explore a question through Google’s AI-powered search features. A website can therefore perform well in conventional Google results, but appear rarely, or sometimes not at all, in the answers people receive from AI systems.
Recent research illustrates how significant that difference can be. An analysis published by Search Engine Land examined around 150,000 indexed pages across ten websites. Among the 100 pages attracting the most organic search traffic, 49 received no referral traffic from AI platforms during the study period. The ten strongest organic pages generated 55% of organic sessions, yet only 29% of AI-referred sessions.
The sample covered only ten websites during one month, so these percentages should be treated as indicative rather than a benchmark for every industry. Even so, they highlight an increasingly important question for businesses: are you visible everywhere your customers are searching?
What Does GEO Mean?
GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimisation. In straightforward terms, it describes work intended to improve the likelihood that a business, website, or piece of information is surfaced when somebody asks an AI system a relevant question.
Traditional SEO often begins with searches such as…
“SEO agency Birmingham”
An AI conversation can be considerably more detailed…
“Which Birmingham SEO agencies work with B2B companies and have experience improving visibility in AI search?”
The person has broadly the same need, but the way they express it has changed. Instead of choosing from a page of search results, they may receive a summarised answer containing several companies, explanations, and supporting sources.
GEO therefore involves understanding the questions people are likely to ask and making sure the website contains clear, credible information that helps an AI system answer them.
Google itself considers SEO fundamentals important for its generative search experiences. Its current guidance says AI Overviews and AI Mode rely on Google’s core search systems, while also using techniques that can run multiple related searches to find supporting information.
Why Can a Page Rank Well on Google Yet Receive Little AI Visibility?
A conventional Google ranking and an AI recommendation involve related signals, but they are not identical outcomes. A page may rank because it has strong authority, relevant content, and a history of satisfying a particular search query. An AI system may receive a much more specific question and look for information elsewhere to construct its answer.
Google explains that AI Mode and AI Overviews can use “query fan-out”, effectively breaking a complicated request into several related searches before identifying useful supporting pages.
ChatGPT search also evaluates web information using factors including user intent, relevance, and recency. OpenAI states that placement in ChatGPT search is not guaranteed simply because a website is available to its search crawler.
This explains why checking ten familiar Google keywords provides only part of the picture.
For example, a business could rank first for “commercial air conditioning company Birmingham”, while a competitor is repeatedly recommended when users ask AI systems questions about reducing office cooling costs, maintaining HVAC systems, or choosing equipment for a warehouse.
What Types of Content Appear to Perform Well in AI Search?
Recent studies have found some particularly interesting differences between page types. Articles based on trends and analysis received AI citations in 78% of the cases studied, while data-led annual reports achieved 61%. More conventional educational and how-to content recorded a considerably lower citation rate of 12%.
Original information appears to be particularly useful because it gives an AI system something specific to reference. Examples could include:
- A manufacturer publishing test results from different materials.
- A dental practice explaining what it commonly sees during consultations.
- A logistics company analysing actual delivery patterns.
- A software provider publishing anonymised customer-support data.
- A retailer comparing genuine sales or purchasing trends.
Google’s own guidance now encourages businesses to create unique, expert-led content that provides information beyond common knowledge.
This does not mean every business needs to commission a large research study. Experience gained through everyday work can provide useful original information when it is explained clearly.
Why Are Service and Product Pages Becoming More Important?
One of the more commercially interesting findings concerned service and product pages. When researchers compared AI visits relative to organic traffic, service and product pages generated 29.4 AI sessions for every 1,000 organic sessions. Articles generated 23.4, FAQs 14 and homepages 5.6.
This matters because service pages have traditionally been written primarily around Google searches and conversions. AI systems also need those pages when answering questions involving recommendations.
If somebody asks, “Who provides SEO services in Birmingham?”, an AI system needs clear evidence that a particular company provides that service, where it operates, what types of projects it handles, and what experience it has.
A thin service page containing a short introductory paragraph and a contact form gives the system relatively little to work with. A stronger page might explain suitable applications, typical problems, processes used, geographical coverage, limitations, examples, and commonly asked questions.
Improving those pages can therefore support conventional SEO, AI visibility, and the person who eventually lands on the website.
How Can Businesses Tell Whether Their Competitors Are More Visible?
Start by thinking beyond keywords. Create a sample of realistic questions a potential customer might ask before choosing a supplier. These could cover recommendations, comparisons, pricing, problems, services, location and suitability.
Run the same or closely matched questions across platforms such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and other relevant AI search tools. Record which businesses appear, which pages are referenced and the reasons given for recommending them.
Patterns quickly become useful. If the same competitor repeatedly appears, examine what information supports those recommendations. They may have stronger service pages, detailed case studies, useful original research, or clearer explanations of their expertise.
The objective is not to copy the competitor’s content, but rather to understand what information AI systems can find about them that they cannot currently find about you.
What Should Businesses Do Next to Improve AI Visibility?
For clients already investing in SEO, there are several sensible next steps if they want to avoid discovering later that competitors have established a substantial lead in AI search.
An AI visibility audit can establish whether the company currently appears for commercially relevant questions and identify which website pages are already receiving AI exposure.
A competitor gap analysis can show which businesses are recommended most frequently and where their visibility appears to come from.
A GEO content review can then identify gaps in existing content. This might uncover service pages that lack detail, useful expertise buried inside PDFs, unanswered customer questions, or valuable internal knowledge that has never been published.
Existing service and information pages can then be improved with clearer answers, genuine experience, specific examples and original information where available.
Finally, ongoing monitoring of AI citations and brand mentions becomes increasingly important because visibility is likely to change as AI products and search behaviour develop.
Google has already made measurement easier. Its Generative AI performance report in Search Console now provides dedicated information about visibility within features such as AI Overviews and AI Mode, and Google confirmed that these reports had been rolled out to websites worldwide by 31 August 2026.
Does GEO Mean Traditional SEO Is Becoming Less Important?
There is little evidence that businesses should abandon conventional SEO. Google explicitly says its core SEO practices remain relevant to generative AI search, including making websites accessible to crawlers, maintaining a clear site structure, and creating useful, reliable content.
The more practical change is that businesses now have another layer of visibility to measure.
Rankings can tell you whether Google considers a page relevant to a search query. AI monitoring can tell you whether your business is being included when people ask broader, conversational questions.
The organisations that understand both will have a clearer picture of how prospective customers are actually finding them.
A website ranking strongly on Google remains valuable. Increasingly, though, the next question should be: when somebody asks an AI assistant who they should choose, does your business appear in the answer?
FAQs
What Is GEO in Digital Marketing?
GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimisation. It involves improving website content and online information so that a business has a better chance of being referenced or recommended within AI-generated answers.
Can a Website Rank Number One on Google and Still Be Missing From ChatGPT?
Yes. Research suggests strong organic rankings and AI visibility overlap without being identical. A highly ranked page may receive little or no traffic from AI platforms.
What Content Is Most Useful for AI Search?
Clear service information, expert commentary, original research, specific answers, useful data and first-hand experience can all help give AI systems information worth referencing.
How Can I Check My Company’s AI Visibility?
Test realistic customer questions across several AI platforms and record when your company and competitors appear. Website analytics and specialist monitoring tools can also help identify AI referrals and citations.
Should Businesses Replace SEO With GEO?
No. Strong SEO fundamentals continue to support visibility in both conventional and AI-powered search. GEO adds another area to measure and improve as customer search behaviour changes.